After a five-year hiatus and a successful run with Army of Anyone, RICHARD PATRICK has reclaimed his legacy with FILTER for ANTHEMS FOR THE DAMNED, due out this May.

Produced by Josh Abraham (Slayer, 30 Seconds to Mars, Velvet Revolver, Staind, Courtney Love), PATRICK calls ANTHEMS FOR THE DAMNED his “howl in the night,” a harsh indictment of civilization that doesn’t exclude himself from its vision of a world falling apart.

The album’s first single “Soldiers of Misfortune” will be released later this month. PATRICK describes the soaring anthem–with its U2/Bowie flavor and stacked backdrop of buzzing electric guitars–as a “sardonic anti-war/pro-troops song.” The first-person narrative was inspired by a letter from a FILTER fan who had enlisted in the Army reserves to get his college tuition paid; in his final year of college, he was shipped off to Iraq where he died from a rocket attack and small arms fire after just a few days of duty.

FILTER will preview tracks from ANTHEMS FOR THE DAMNED alongside such FILTER classics as “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” “Take a Picture” and others when they hit the road for special California club shows next month. The band will follow the shows with additional U.S. shows just prior to the album’s release, mixing headlining shows, festival appearances and radio shows.

ANTHEMS FOR THE DAMNED features such collaborators as guitarist/songwriter John 5, guitarist Wes Borland and drummer Josh Freese and marks FILTER’s first release in five years since The Amalgamut. Pointed and passionate, the new album traces PATRICK’s own anger and shame with the state of things, from the intense alternative industrial blast of “The Take,” “What’s Next” and “Hatred is Contagious,” the ultimate resignation of “Kill the Day” and “Lie After Lie” to the tentative hope expressed by “Only You” and the ambient soundscape of the closing “Can Stop This.”

FILTER’s club shows are as follows:DATE CITY VENUEMarch 2 San Diego, CA The Casbah
March 3 Orangevale, CA Boardwalk
March 4 San Francisco, CA Café DuNord

Atlanta rockers ASPHALT VALENTINE recently locked a full ride endorsement deal with The Curt Mangan Company, a premium guitar string company that believes all players deserve the finest guitar strings with sonic clarity like no other.

Guitarist Chris Meyer will have his very own ‘Signature Series’ guitar string and bassist Scott Clark and guitarist Brett Ciaramella will enjoy a full ride with The Curt Mangan
Company as well.

Strip Rock Roll the debut release from ASPHALT VALENTINE is in the finishing stages and is being produced by Andy Reilly. You can download the title track by clicking here!

Locomotive Records has set a March 4 U.S. release date for “Unlocking the Past” from JORN, the solo project of former MASTERPLAN vocalist Jorn Lande.”Unlocking the Past” includes some previously unreleased cover songs that were originally considered to be “leftovers” or additional bonus tracks for previous JORN albums. Many of them were never included on any official release. Some brand new covers were also recorded specifically for this CD. Dust has been brushed from these recordings; the remix of “Burn”, “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” (which originally appeared on JORN’s solo debut album “Starfire”), and the remastered version of “On and On” (which was supposed to appear on a MILLENIUM covers album a few years back), complete the track listing of the album.

When Steve Harris from Iron Maiden recommends a band, I tend to take notice. He has talked favorably about Voodoo Six, and has called their debut, the best he has heard in years.

That was enough to have me search out a copy of the band’s 2006 debut, Feed My Soul. After spinning this disc for the first time, all I can say is, Thank You, Mr. Harris! Voodoo Six delivers the goods!

Singer Henry Rundell has one of those one of a kind 80’s style metal voices, that is quite cool to hear for the first time. His sound falls somewhere between a Jeff Keith from Tesla, and a little bit of Robert Plant.

The band itself leaves me speechless. Voodoo Six has a sound that is a very good blend of 70’s, 80’s and 90’s hard rock. They may not have a completely unique sound, but it is different enough to excite this hard rock fan. In their tunes, I hear elements of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and quite a few others. While their sound may borrow a little from these bands, they don’t sound exactly like any of them, and that is completely cool.

If you want to hear a CD, where guitar solos are not a lost art form, where the bass playing is not a bunch of distortion, where the drum beats will ignite your inner head banger, THIS is the CD to get. Voodoo Six is still very much an unknown band in the U.S. as Feed My Soul has not had a proper release here.

With a disc this good, rock fans that haven’t heard this are truly missing out! This is killer stuff! Voodoo Six will be releasing then 2nd disc in 2008. I highly recommend that you check this band out. Chances are you may find yourself buying two V6 discs this year. Feed My Soul is a very good debut, and is one I will be spinning a lot in 2008.

Black Tide have just completed a tour of North America and Europe opening for Avenged Sevenfold and will continue life on the road as they approach the release of their debut album, Light From Above. The band can be seen with All That Remains and Chimaira in February and March and on the Mayhem Tour with Slipknot and Disturbed this summer.

The heavily anticipated release from the hard rocking band will hit stores March 18th, 2008.

As Black Tide gear up for more touring and their new album, you can gear up too. The band and Hard Rock Hideout are giving you the chance to win a Dean MLX guitar, a Schecter Stiletto Studio-4 bass, a Pearl Joey Jordison model steel snare and a Coffin Case bass case.

In 1997, Judas Priest guitarist, Glenn Tipton released his first solo CD.
While strolling through the used music bin the other day, I managed to find the remastered copy of the disc, that was released by Atlantic in 2006.

The reissue of this disc contains two additional bonus tracks Himalaya and New Breed.

On this album, Tipton handles all of the vocals and guitar work. Glenn gets some help by a star studded cast of musicians on this record including Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Brooks Wackerman (Bad4Good, Bad Religion, KORN), Shannon Larkin (Godsmack), Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big), Cozy Powell (R.I.P.), Don Airey (Deep Purple), John Entwistle (The Who) and Whitfield Crane (Ugly Kid Joe, Another Animal).

Tipton’s vocals wont set the world on fire, but the guitar work on this record is superb. His vocals are certainly influenced by Rob Halford, but Tipton doesn’t have the same range. All of the tracks were written by Tipton, with the exception of the Rolling Stones cover, Paint It Black. The music on this record doesn’t stray very far from Judas Priest’s style of heavy metal.

If you can get past Tipton’s vocals, you might find Baptizm of Fire to your liking. Baptizm of Fire started growing on me after repeated listens. My favorite cuts on this disc are Hard Core, Extinct, and The Healer.

Judas Priest fans need to check out Baptizm of Fire. If you haven’t heard this one before, it might help tide you over until the new J.P. release, Nostradamus gets here!

It is almost mind boggling for me to think that 2008 marks the 25th Anniversary of Motley Crue’s Shout At the Devil.

If I were to choose my top 10 favorite albums of all time, Shout at the Devil would almost certainly make the list.

I think I have owned Shout at the Devil in every form it has been in, including LP (Yes, I tried to find the backwards message), cassette, and CD. Few CD’s bring back the fond memories that this disc does, and this album has always found itself in my playlist consistently over the years.

On Shout at the Devil, Motley Crue was still hungry, and this comes across in the sound of the record. They had not yet achieved the massive success that they were headed for. The band was certainly were making a name for themselves every where they went, and their reputation as L.A. bad boys certainly solidified after the release of Shout At the Devil.

The band’s sound matured over the punk/metal style of Too Fast For Love. Shout at the Devil is a raw metal record. In my opinion, the band hadn’t fallen prey to the pop metal sound that would show up on their later records.

Everything from the Intro to the final cut Danger rocks on this record. Shout at the Devil is everything that a metal record should be loud, sleazy and totally cool. No metal fan should be without it.

According to a posting on the Tokuma Communicationsweb site, veteran Japanese metallers LOUDNESS will release their new album, “Metal Mad”, through the label on February 20 in Japan. Release dates for other territories have not yet been announced.Metal Mad features the following tracklist: ‘Fire Of Spirit’ (instrumental), ‘Metal Mad’, ‘High Flyer’, ‘Spellbound #9’, ‘Crimson Paradox’, ‘Black And White’, ‘Whatsoever’, ‘Call Of The Reaper’, ‘Can’t Find My Way’, ‘Gravity’, ‘Transformation’.

Bullet For My Valentine has just released their new album Scream Aim Fire and the accompanying digital comic books are now available. The digital comic books by Tom Manning, entitled Scream Aim Fire: The Comics, is an anthology inspired by BFMV’s new lyrics. Tom Manning is best known for his comic book series Runoff, which Manning, in partnership with Guiermo Del Toro, hopes to turn into a full-length feature film. Fans can check out the first four BFMV comics: “Scream Aim Fire,” “Eye of the Storm,” “Hearts Burst into Fire,” and “Waking the Demon” at www.SAFthecomics.com. Bullet For My Valentine will release digital comic books for the rest of Scream Aim Fire in the coming weeks.

If you weren’t one of the diehard rock fans, that purchased the import of Airbourne’s Running Wild in 2007, you now have the chance to get a copy of this CD at your favorite retailer.Today (January 29th, 2008) marks the U.S. Release of Airbourne’s Running Wild by Roadrunner Records.

L.A. Guns brought their 20th Anniversary Tour to The Blue Note in Cincinnati, Ohio last Thursday Night. A couple of bands Session 9, and A Nervous Wreck opened the show, and got the crowd revved for Phil Lewis and company. This night started to look as if it was going to be the third live music debacle of 2008. The band Z02 were supposed to open for L.A. Guns, but cancelled the day before the show. I was looking forward to seeing this band play live for weeks, so their cancellation came as a disappointment. This was the only thing disppapointing on Thursday Night.

L.A. Guns, featuring Phil Lewis on vocals, Stacey Blades on guitar, Scott Griffin on bass, and Steve Riley on drums, hit the stage at around 11 P.M. and played for a little over an hour. The set contained most of the band’s hits including: Sex Action, Over the Edge, One More Reason, Never Enough, Kiss My Love Goodbye, The Ballad of Jayne, Rip and Tear, Hellraiser’s Ball, and Gypsy Soul.

It was an extremely tight set, and the band seemed to be in top form all night. This is the second time I have seen L.A. Guns over the last few months (you can read about the first show here), but it was definitely the best out of the two shows I have seen.

Phil Lewis still sounds as good as he did 20 years ago. Stacey Blades is an outstanding guitar player. As a whole, L.A Guns still rocks and does it well! The Phil Lewis led L.A. Guns continues to prove that their is only one band that deserves to use the L.A. Guns name. The best one played in Cincinnati Thursday night. The 150 – 200 people that were there for the show, saw a very good night of rock. The turn out for this show was exceptional for a bitter cold Thursday night.

Special thanks to J.T. from Class X Radio for the ticket for this show, and to Paul at TransFusion Productions for bringing L.A. Guns back to the Queen City.

Bullet For My Valentine are streaming their entire new album, Scream Aim Fire, in its entirety on Myspace. Scream Aim Fire will be in stores on January 29th. Bullet For My Valentine are currently on tour in Europe and will kick off the Taste of Chaos Tour in the US on February 29th. The band has also released an exclusive audio commentary on their new album at MP3.com. The commentary gives an inside look at the making of the new album.

Hot off the tails of their very successful multi platinum debut Night Songs, Cinderella released their sophomore effort Long Cold Winter in 1988.

While this disc is never considered as popular as their debut, Long Cold Winter offers a the listener a bunch of well crafted tunes with a bluesy rock edge.

Cinderella’s sound started growing away from the hair metal roots, and into a more bluesy sound, that seemed to bridge the gap in the sound difference between Night Songs, and the later release Heartbreak Station. Tom Keifer was developing as a better singer instead of a screamer, which he did more of on the debut.

While I have enjoyed all of Cinderella’s releases so far, Long Cold Winter is by far my favorite of them all. This is one of those rare releases, where there are no filler tracks. I can play this one from beginning to end repeatedly, without finding the need to skip a track.

It took several years after its release, but the RIAA shows this disc along with Night Songs as selling over 3 Million copies now. It is hard to believe that disc is already 20 years old. It is a must own record in my collection, and is one that I would be happy to purchase again today.

Rating: Out of 10

Track Listing:
1. Bad Seamstress Blues, Fallin’ Apart At The Seams
2. Gypsy Road
3. Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)
4. The Last Mile
5. Second Wind
6. Long Cold Winter
7. If You Don’t Like It
8. Coming Home
9. Fire And Ice
10. Take Me Back

Back in 1990, Atlantic Records signed Norwegian rockers Sons of Angels to a record deal.

Their self titled disc disappeared about as fast as it arrived. The band had a little bit of success, as a music video was released for the song Cowgirl. The band managed to sell 150,000 copies of the CD, but disappeared before long.

Unlike many of the hair metal CD’s of the early 90’s, this one actually has a little more substance. Great vocals, and a funky upbeat vibe drive these tunes. While Cowgirl is the obvious hit, there isn’t a bad song on this disc.

I once owned a copy of this on cassette tape, but never replaced it until last year. I was shocked to find a used copy of this disc in 2007. A quick internet search, and I found that you can still grab this disc for under 10 bucks (for a used copy) through Amazon.com, and occasionally on EBay. It is way out of print, but well worth the price of admission.

I have to wonder if Bret Michaels thinks he is doing his career any favors, with this stupid reality show, Rock of Love, and now Rock of Love 2 on VH1.

Poison hasn’t released any new material of their own in years, but they continue to tour each year. (They were quite good in 2007!)

CC Deville has had his taste of the Reality TV game with the Surreal Life, and now Bret continues with the moronic affair that is Rock of Love 2.

Somehow, this has become one of the highest rated shows on VH1. It truly is a sad, sad day, when garbage programs like this become media darlings.

Much like Rock of Love, the producers of this show must have been scouring every seedy strip club, and adult film shop to find their new cast full of artificially enhanced women.

Rock of Love 2, already has a porn star to its credit. Angelique Moran who is seemingly going by the name Albine on Rock of Love 2, has several porn sites to her credit. A quick google search on her name, and you will find the not so interesting site PornEskimo.com. I had no idea there was such a place, and a website like this is better left unvisited. Aside from that, two other cast members are Playboy models.

Hopefully someday, Bret Michaels will go back to a credible music career. He is only embarrassing himself by treading down this Rock of Love 2 road. At the rate he is going , he will be remembered more for this pathetic excuse of a T.V. Show. VH1 must pay well for shows like this. You may resume watching the train wreck now!

The debut single from metal Black Tide, “Shockwave,” has been chosen by iTunes as their “Single of the Week” starting today, January 15th. The infectious track, with its potent blend of steamrolling riffs, shredding solos and memorable vocal hooks, will be available for as a FREE download via the iTunes music store.The forthcoming album, Light From Above, will now be arriving in stores this March rather than the originally anticipated February 26th release.

Chicago, IL based rockers THE DOGS DIVINE has signed with CHAVIS RECORDS for their debut release ‘Way Of Life‘. Paul Crosby (of SALIVA) was selected to produce the album and what has been delivered is 10 tracks of energetic, soul shaking, whiskey fueled thunderous rock n’ roll.

THE DOGS DIVINE features Tom Hart(v), Trent Anderson(d), Johnny Harley(g), Tommy Montgomery(g), and James Dean(b).THE DOGS DIVINE blend the old with the new and turn it up loud to deliver a non-stop macabre rollercoster ride as seen through the eyes of five rock and rollers who live it everyday.

The DOGS have already hit the road in support of ‘Way Of Life”Way Of Life’ will be available exclusively through digital download via iTunes and Rhapsody with additional digital outlets to follow and the physical drop of the CD in April. BCD Music Group will handle national distribution. Tour dates announced here. Lane Productions handles booking. while the album is being mixed and mastered. Initially,

Pick up the latest issue of Metal Edge. THE DOGS DIVINE are in this month’s issue with the track MY OLD FRIENDS featured on the very first Metal Edge Compilation CD.

Visit THE DOGS DIVINE here and download your FREE copy of the song, MY OLD FRIENDS by clicking here.

Frontiers Records is excited to announce all details surrounding the forthcoming HOUSE OF LORDS album “Come To My Kingdom” to be released on March 14th 2008.The band’s previous studio album “World Upside Down” was a real fan favourite, so James Christian and the guys went back to the recording with the precise task to create a true rock milestone which could pick up where “World Upside Down” left off.

With the help of the “Fifth Lord” Jeff Kent plus Tommy Denander and Chris Pelcer, the band’s songwriting talents of James Christian, BJ Zampa and Jimi Bell have been flourishing to reach some of the highest levels in the band’s career ever.

Written during the summer 2007, the album was recorded in the fall and mixed by Dennis Ward in November / December. The result is truly outstanding. From the signature intro of “Purgatorio Overtoure n.2” to the epic atmospheres of the title track through to soaring melodic numbers like “I Need To Fly” to the in-your-face attack of “One Foot in the Dark” and to the baroque ballad “Another Day From Heaven”, this record has truly everything the fans may want to ask to James Christian and his cohorts.

”Come to My Kingdom” will include the following songs: Purgatorio Overtoure n.2; Come To My Kingdom; I Need To Fly; I Don’t Wanna Wait All Night; Another Day From Heaven; In A Perfect World; The Dream; One Foot In The Dark; Your Every Move; I Believe; One Touch; Even Love Can Save Us; In The Light; Another Day From Heaven (Acoustic Version)*

* Exclusive Bonus Track for Europe

Click on the highlighted tracks above to preview the new songs!

House of Lords are already planning live appearances in the spring / summer 2008 with the plan to storm the European audiences. The band was also already confirmed for the ROCKLAHOMA festival 2008. Prepare to “Come to My Kingdom” to be released on Frontiers Records on March 14 with a release in Japan scheduled on King Records. Dates will be posted at the Frontiers Records website as well as www.jameschristianmusic.com

“I have been approached to see if I would be interested in contacting Rudy Sarzo and Carlos Cavazo and to audition singers for QUIET RIOT.

“I have also been approached to see if I would be interested in contacting and reforming the version of QUIET RIOT that included Paul Shortino, Carlos Cavazo and Sean McNabb.

“Let me make this very simple and perfectly clear. While I am still actively involved in the business interests of QUIET RIOT and will continue in that capacity, I reject any and all suggestions to have QUIET RIOT continue as a live performing entity.

“My friendship, love and respect for [late QUIET RIOT singer] Kevin DuBrow as well as my personal love and affection for Kevin’s mother and his family makes it inconceivable for me to ever entertain any ovation to reform or to continue QUIET RIOT. Kevin was too important to go on without him. It would also be a disrespect to the fans who have supported QUIET RIOT for nearly 25 years.

“I thank everyone for the wonderful and sometimes unpredictable adventure that I was able to share as a member of QUIET RIOT. The only regret that I have is the loss of Kevin. May he rest in peace.